More training runs under our belt!

Good afternoon! Today’s newsletter was a little delayed because last night I was out in the country taking photos of auroras from about 7:30pm to 1:30am instead of writing this… But look at these pics!! Worth it!! It’s pretty rare to see any aurora even through camera long exposures in Indiana, let alone this vibrant to the naked eye!

In last week’s newsletter, we talked about how a recent run with the dogs didn’t go as planned. We gave the dogs a few days off until the next run. If Boo wasn’t feeling well or was dealing with a small injury, maybe it would give him time to feel better. If something spooked him on the run, maybe he would forget about it by the next run.

On Tuesday, we hooked the dogs up to the bike to give it another shot. But unfortunately, Boo came to a grinding halt halfway through the run at the exact same spot as last time. After a few minutes of coaxing, and changing directions, Riley was finally able to get him moving again, but you could tell he still wasn’t fully into it. Riley took the dogs on two more laps of our little loop in the opposite direction (Pence decided she wanted to turn around during the stoppage..) and Boo did run, but Pence was still way more into it than him.

We came back home, and I was quite discouraged that we now had two bad runs in a row. I was beginning to think Boo just didn’t want to run anymore. We talked with Q, and he said it didn’t really sound like how dogs age out/decide they don’t want to run anymore. It’s not usually abrupt like that.

I did have one thought. During these two bad runs, we had switched which harnesses which dog was wearing. We did this because Boo is quite a bit longer than Pence, and harnesses come in different shapes/sizes/lengths etc. We swapped harnesses so that they hit them in roughly the same spot so that both dogs should pull more equally, versus having one dog doing more of the work.

Boo being Boo, I wondered if maybe he was upset that we gave his harness to Pence. He can be a sensitive boy. Or maybe the new harness was hitting/rubbing him in a spot he didn’t like.

The next day, I swapped their harnesses back to the ones they had used on runs earlier this fall to see if that would do the trick. We hooked the dogs up to the scooter and took off.

Immediately, Boo was pulling and running harder! He also chose a different route than the previous two runs, which I was fine with because I wanted him to enjoy it. Throughout the run, he ran slightly in front of Pence and was pulling nicely! The opposite of what he had been doing.

We ended up running a little over a mile and everything went smoothly! A huge sigh of relief. So whether it was having his own harness back, or taking a different route, or both, we finally had a solid run! Hopefully this streak continues as we get closer to races! Speaking of races, we are hoping to nail down our race schedule ASAP. Stay tuned!

As you can see in the GIF above, when we run at night, we use a headlamp, headlight, reflective line, reflective harnesses, a taillight, and the Noxgear LightHound harnesses so that all pedestrians and vehicles see us coming and hopefully keep us safe!

Thanks for checking out this week’s newsletter, we’ll catch you next time!

-Hannah, Riley, Boo, and Pence